Discovering new trading patterns with our stock market system

The first thing I want to open this email with is a congrats to several of the traders that have followed their rules to make small and large profits here and there this last week. Some of you have lost some and some of you have earned some. This week was a slow week for everyone. LIWA and CLDX were the only ones on my radar that finally moved in my favor at either end of last week.

This coming week I am going to be much more aggressive in my trading. I am currently up 10% for the month of February and 20% for the month of January. My stock market system is simply a strategy that takes a lot of real time practice as you work towards learning to become a full time trader.

I wanted to quote some Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Out of his 31 major causes of failure, I will quote one of my favorites.

Lack of a well-defined purpose in life.
There is no hope of success for the person who does not have a central purpose or definite goal at which to aim. Ninety-eight out of every hundred of those whom I have analyzed had no such aim. Perhaps this was the major cause of their failure.

This makes me ponder what is my goal in investing and trading? What are my financial goals? What are my life goals, and where can I help others. Where can I fulfill my goals and help others in living a more productive life and be more efficient at their daily tasks.

Think of some of your own daily trading and long-term investing goals, write them down, pursue them and you will succeed.

Here is a link http://www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=nep,gnw,mic,x,cree

to see what a stock does when it hits new highs, it generally gains momentum and goes higher.

NEP above 6 and goes and almost doubles.

GNW anything above 13.68 and then 15.20, it went higher and higher.

CREE just hit new highs should continue much higher.

X just turning around moving higher and wants to fill that gap. WATCH out above.

Market Summary

The Fed’s decision to hike the discount rate after the prior session’s close stirred market participants to dump stocks in pursuit of the dollar, but the dollar inevitably drifted lower and stocks managed to recover and finish the week with their fourth straight gain… Given that the Fed’s decision to lift the discount rate to 0.75% from 0.50% marked the first rate hike in one year, participants panicked a bit and made a knee-jerk decision to sell stocks. The announcement shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise, though. After all, Fed Chairman gave market participants a clue during his recent testimony before the House Financial Services Committee that a modest increase in the spread between the discount rate and the target federal funds rate was expected before long… Still, to help quell concern about what may be in store, the Fed expressed that its decision was not a signal for any change in the economy or monetary policy. Several Fed officials made similar, separate comments of their own about how to interpret the move, but many seemed to ignore the notion that the increased discount rate was a tacit sign that the financial system is back on firmer footing… In conjunction with the announcement the dollar was pushed higher, such that the Dollar Index climbed as much as 0.5% to new multimonth highs and even broke through a key technical resistance level that restrained its gain in the previous session. However, the greenback eventually rolled over and finished at a session low with a 0.5% loss against a basket of foreign currencies… A softer-than-expected inflationary reading played a hand in the dollar’s downturn. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for January made a 0.2% monthly gain, which was slightly below the 0.3% increase that had been widely expected. Excluding food and energy, consumer prices for January actually slipped 0.1% month-over-month, instead of the 0.1% monthly increase that economists had forecast… As the dollar surrendered its gain, stocks were able to regroup and make a broad-based bounce to positive territory. The move took the S&P 500 above its 50-day moving average to a one-month high, but buyers didn’t step in at the higher price points to help stocks extend the move into something more meaningful. As a result, stocks traded with choppy action into the close and left the stock market to settle with a modest gain, in-line with its 50-day moving average. Still, that was enough to give the stock market its fourth straight advance and a weekly gain of more than 3% — its best weekly performance in three months. Dow +0.1%, Nasdaq +0.1%, S&P 500 +0.2%, Nasdaq 100 unch., S&P 400 +0.5%, Russell 2000 +0.4%

Have a great weekend.

Ben Brinneman